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Technology | Nostalgia | Home Computers | 1980s
Remembering the Sinclair ZX Spectrum
Personal memories of my first home computer and reflections on its impact
Is it really the 40th anniversary of Sinclair ZX Spectrum? How quickly those years have gone by!
I couldn’t let the day pass without writing something. So I put this article together at the last minute using material I first wrote a few years ago for a now-defunct blog.
First Computer At Home
The Sinclair ZX Spectrum is a particularly significant 8-bit computer for me because it was the first computer I ever owned.
Improving on the ZX81
Like the ZX81 before it, the ZX Spectrum was heavily advertised in the various electronics magazines I read back in the 80s.
Released in 1982, the Spectrum improved on the ZX81 in several ways, such as adding colour and sound, as well as more memory (16 / 48 KB, instead of 1 KB), and an improved keyboard.
It also had a bigger ROM — at 16 KB it was twice as big as the one in the ZX81.
The Spectrum’s Z80 microprocessor was clocked a little faster than the one in the ZX81 (3.5 MHz instead of 3.25 MHz), and it did away with its predecessor’s FAST and SLOW modes, by delivering the best of both modes.
The Spectrum’s rubber keyboard wasn’t anything like as good as the one found on machines like the Apple II and BBC Micro.
Some people think the Oric-1 had a better keyboard. Whether that’s true or not, it was certainly a big improvement over the membrane keyboard found on the ZX81.
Programs were usually stored on cassette, using a normal audio cassette recorder. Running at 1500 bps, the Spectrum’s cassette interface was about five times faster than the ZX81’s.
As an alternative to cassette, the optional Microdrive could be used instead. Microdrives were a cheap but unreliable floppy disk alternative, also used later…
